Buying or Selling IPv4 Addresses?

Watch this video to discover how ACCELR/8, a transformative trading platform developed by industry veterans Marc Lindsey and Janine Goodman, enables organizations to buy or sell IPv4 blocks as small as /20s.

After interacting with over 1000 network engineers during training sessions about what they think could help drive IPv6 deployment in Africa, I have come to the realisation that a three prong approach is required:

1. Provide technical guidance/training to the engineers so they have the skills to be able to plan, deploy and integrate IPv6.

2. Provide non-technical guidance/training to engineers so that they can 'sell' IPv6 to executives.

3. Provide non-technical guidance/training to executives so that they both (a) understand the importance of IPv6 within the context of their businesses, and (b) can champion their geeks' IPv6 deployment projects.

Many training courses focus on the first issue, and quite logically, that's where the real work lies. I've developed such a course that has been delivered in over 45 countries, and there are lots of other great training available, both free and paid.

On to issue #2, engineers need to sell IPv6 to managers rather than complain that they don't 'get' it ('it' being the obviousness of IPv6 as the future). If you are an engineer in that position, you are in luck, I've got some guidance on How to Sell IPv6 to Executive Management and the follow-up article here on CircleId about Thinking Strategically about IPv6. There's lots of other guidance out there.

The intention behind this post is to address the second part of issue #3 — if you are one of those managers who DO understand the need to push IPv6 deployment, what can you DO to help your engineers on that project? This should be easy, because in many ways, guidance for executives is complementary to the non-technical guidance for geeks hence you will see some of the same elements. Here are some suggestions:

A. Help the engineers build a business case for IPv6 deployment to the company:

It means asking them to make presentations to you, giving them feedback that forces them to be explicit and concrete about how this benefits the company and what the cost and risk implications are going to be. You are master of the business model, they master the technology, so in this partnership, you guide them to fit the technology into the business model. Yes, this will take several sessions but think of it, a good manager is already on an on-going basis communicating and getting her geeks to understand how their technology fits into the big picture of how the organisation creates, delivers, manages and profits from value — if that has been happening, then most of the job is already done. If it has not, then at the beginning, both of you will use jargon that the other might not understand but after a few rounds of mutual learning and coaching, in the end, you'll have a shared vision in a document that the higher ups can read and immediately get it because it plugs directly into the organisation's business model, while laying out cost, risk and other implications.

B. Become their champion to your other business colleagues:

I am mostly a geek myself and I truly sympathise with geeks who don't understand how supposedly smart executives can be so stupid when it comes to seeing some obvious things and making the right investments. The geeks' world is perfectly logical to them ...but unfortunately so does the executives'. The truth is that in both cases, logic could be flawed due to lack of understanding and full perspective. The result is dissonance between the business and the tech and that is your most important job - build bridges over the moat that separates the executives (in the castle) and the engineers (on the field). It is not coincidence that single biggest reason initiatives or projects fail is lack of executive support and championship, and here's where your engineers need you ...to be a champion. It means you will coach and hold their hands in navigating the political backwaters of the resource allocation machinery within your organisation. You will help guide them in the art of compromise and influence and if need be, do the politicking and shield them from it. (because nothing disgusts most geeks like politicking within organisations over things that make 'logical sense')

C. Help them secure critical resources for deploying IPv6:

Be it time off to go learn about IPv6, IPv6 books and other learning material, getting a line in the budget so they can get the training they need, or ensuring they have the human resources for different aspects of the deployment project. Those are invaluable supportive actions that make all the difference in the world. I have long learnt (through much anguish) to mostly disregard what most executives *say*, if you really want to know what a organisation is committed to doing and can do, look not to the CEO's annual presentation or even the strategic plan, look at the the budget. The point is this ... waxing lyrical about how important IPv6 is to the future of this organisation and not allocating resources to it (budget, people) is hypocrisy that your geeks will soon discern, after that human nature takes over and guess what happens to their engagement and enthusiasm?

D. Hold them accountable at all phases of the project as planned:

If you did a good job of coaching and handholding, you would have made sure that the deployment project milestones are not just technical but are of known business value. You will hold them accountable for delivering on schedule, on specifications and within budget constraints. The act of holding them accountable for this project is evidence that you care about it and it shows that you have skin in the game.

E. Help them communicate the value of the deployment phases to the rest of the organisation:

"Our network core is now dual-stacked" is an uninspiring goal to attain for guys who are not geeks. "We just crossed a major hurdle in making sure that our content and clients can be reached by the X million people who don't have IPv4 addresses" (or something like that) might be more meaningful to the CFO who is paying for it. Yes, you need to be both their cheerleader and PR person.

Those are just some suggestions, I am sure great managers will find additional ways. In the end, it is the same things that make one an effective manager — so nothing new under the sun, don't let the shiny new IPv6-dressing fool you. The principles are the same, How to Sell IPv6 to Executive Management.

By Mukom Akong Tamon, Chief Excellence Officer™ | Certified in IPv6, 4DX Strategy Execution, Lean Si Mukom works for a Regional Internet Registry (RIR). Everything he writes are his opinion and do not necessarily reflect the views of his employers, past, present or future. Visit Page

If you are pressed for time ...

... this is for you. More and more professionals are choosing to publish critical posts on CircleID from all corners of the Internet industry. If you find it hard to keep up daily, consider subscribing to our weekly digest. We will provide you a convenient summary report once a week sent directly to your inbox. It's a quick and easy read.

I make a point of reading CircleID. There is no getting around the utility of knowing what thoughtful people are thinking and saying about our industry.

Vinton Cerf, Co-designer of the TCP/IP Protocols & the Architecture of the Internet

Share your comments

Related

There is no doubt that the Internet continues to grow. While the sales volumes of the more traditional forms of personal computers has peaked at some 430 million units per year and sales of handheld smart devices has also peaked at some 1.9 billion units per year, the world of the Internet of Things continues to spiral upward. The installed base of these "things" is now at an astonishing 8.4 billion at the end of 2017. more

Alain Durand, Principal Technologist at ICANN, visited Georgia Institute of Technology last week for a talk on the global adoption of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6). The Internet Governance Project organized the talk in cooperation with Atlanta's Technology Development Center (ATDC) and the Institute for Information Security and Privacy. Durand, who was involved in the IPv6 standardization efforts at IETF back in the early to mid-1990s, offered a clear eyed assessment of the protocol's critical flaw... more

This is the eighth year we measure IPv6 on the Christmas Goat. And with the crazy climate we have to live in now where there is no snow on the goat or ground. But IPv6 is doing better than the climate this year. This year we increased from 27% 2016 to 40% 2017. In Sweden Tele2, Tre and Comhem are still the only major ISPs with IPv6 enabled. Tele2 (with IPv6 since ~three years) and Tre is mostly mobile operators, and Comhem has enabled IPv6 in their Docsis network. more

Confronted with the rapid development of the Internet, the traditional network is facing severe challenges. Therefore, it is imperative to accelerate the construction of global network infrastructure and build a new generation of Internet infrastructure to adapt to the Internet of Everything and the intelligent society. From November 28 to 30, 2017, "GNTC 2017 Global Network Technology Conference" organized by BII Group and CFIEC, will see a grand opening in Beijing. more

IPAM solutions are the source of truth for IP resources on the network, but when performing IPAM functions such as assignments, reconciliations, DNS updates, network plans, or Regional Internet Registry (RIR) requests, IPAM is often limited by its integration with an OSS. Operational teams can find it challenging to complete routine tasks without an integrated IPAM solution due to siloed data pools and swivel-chair environments. more

With reference to IPv6, probably most end users do not have any sense of it. The mainstream condition in the industry is that network carriers and content/service providers stick to their own arguments. Carriers consider lack of IPv6 content and service as the reason demand for IPv6 from the users is very low. The content and service providers believe that users cannot have access to content and service through IPv6 and thus carriers should provide the service in the background. more

Network Address Translation has often been described as an unfortunate aberration in the evolution of the Internet, and one that will be expunged with the completion of the transition of IPv6. I think that this view, which appears to form part of today's conventional wisdom about the Internet unnecessarily vilifies NATs. In my opinion, NATs are far from being an aberration, and instead, I see them as an informative step in the evolution of the Internet, particularly as they relate to possibilities in the evolution of name-based networking. Here's why. more

Back in the early 2000s, several notable Internet researchers were predicting the death of the Internet. Based on the narrative, the Internet infrastructure had not been designed for the scale that was being projected at the time, supposedly leading to fatal security and scalability issues. Yet somehow the Internet industry has always found a way to dodge the bullet at the very last minute. more

I believe Mobile Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are and very well remain powerful and best-suited technologies that will help provide connectivity and digital access in a much faster and cheaper way for developing countries of the globe. Thus, they are to be leveraged within their most strategic and profitable functional or usage contexts. Mobile access technologies along with relevant innovations have formed a powerful springboard for the Internet to be significantly accelerated in terms of access, usage and penetration. more

Many C-level executives are unaware their IT organizations could be sitting on a lucrative sellable supply of unused IPv4 addresses. Assessing and executing on the opportunity takes planning, but there's a clear path for getting it done. In 2014 and 2015, buyers had their pick of large block holders with millions of available and unused numbers. This surplus allowed large buyers to shop around for the lowest offer and, as a result, drive prices down to a low of $4/number. more

The IETF published RFC8200 last week, which officially makes IPv6 an Internet Standard. While this move was a long time coming -- IPv6 has now reached about 20% deployment -- a more interesting question is: what has changed since RFC2460, which was a draft standard, was published in 2013? After all, the point of moving from the experimental to the draft standard to the internet standard states is to learn more about the protocol as it operates on the wire... more

In September 2015, the free pool of IPv4 numbers available through the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) ran dry. In 2016, the IPv4 market was the only reliable source of IPv4 numbers, globally, and the pattern of activity changed dramatically. So far in 2017, we have seen the trends in the last half of 2016 continue. Throughout 2015, IPv4 transactions were trending steadily upward and the volume of transferred numbers had reached an all time high... more

On the fifth anniversary of World IPv6 Launch, we're excited to share a detailed report on the State of IPv6 Deployment in 2017. It really is staggering how far IPv6 deployment has progressed in five years. In mid-2012, Google measured less than 1% of users accessing their services over IPv6. Today that figure is getting close to 20%. Since World IPv6 Launch, several major operators are now delivering the majority of traffic from major content sources like Google, Akamai and others over IPv6. more

The Best Practice Forum (BPF) on IPv6 at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) explored what economic and commercial incentives drive providers, companies and organizations to deploy IPv6 on their networks and for their services. The BPF collected case studies, held open discussions online and at the 2016 IGF meeting, and produced a comprehensive output report. This article gives a high-level overview. more

Open Source (OS) Management and Orchestrations (MANO) is a European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) initiative that aims to develop a Network Function Virtualization (NFV) MANO software stack, aligned with ETSI NFV. The main goal of MANO is to simplify the onboarding of virtual network components in telco cloud data centers. The initiative has gained impressive momentum among leading Communication Service Providers (CSPs) around the world as part of their NFV programs. more

Promoted Post

Buying or Selling IPv4 Addresses?

Watch this video to discover how ACCELR/8, a transformative trading platform developed by industry veterans Marc Lindsey and Janine Goodman, enables organizations to buy or sell IPv4 blocks as small as /20s.

Avenue4 LLCRead4526

A World-Renowned Source for Internet Developments. Serving Since 2002.